The messenger would be a great idea. I've mentioned it also in some of my posts and glad to see that you talk about it also. On the interface is also some work needed and I am on the same side of busy.org users for more than a week.
The easier start for new users with a voting bot would be a little bit difficult I guess considering that some of them might post plagiarized content or some kind of spam, but solutions can always be found.
Glad that you wrote about this topics since I am always searching for the better way in everything and hope that someone who has influence at Steemit will read your post and start making some changes. Otherwise the platform and the user experience is pretty good.
Hope you don't mind if I resteem you post ;-)